“This youth, the first of their outfit, had gone quickly, silently, without having seen the terrors, the muck, the grime, the great adventure. The unknown future supplanted by the sudden frightening appearance of reality was seen in all their curious faces, as they watched. The boy’s fellow members in the Company Mess struggled with the flag draped stretcher up the hatch way, onto the deck, and finally placed it to rest on the saw horse & rail. Suddenly the maddening roar of silence as the ship’s motors stopped, and the ever existent pulse & throb of the heart of the ship turned to silently roll in the evening, quiet except for the voice of the chaplain as he read from the small yellow card attached to the Bible. There was no breeze, no clouds. There was nothing. The chaplain’s prayer died out, the flag was lifted, the board tilted, and the body slipped into the sea. The salute was fired and the pulse & throb, louder than ever, beat through the ship.”